Tarrant County Criminal Defense Attorney

Charge categories handled in Tarrant County

The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office prosecutes the full Texas charge spectrum filed from Tarrant County arrests. Each major category has its own defense framework, statutory analysis, and procedural workflow:

• DWI (Tex. Penal Code § 49.04) — Class B (BAC < 0.15) or Class A (BAC ≥ 0.15) first offense; second-offense Class A; felony DWI on third or DWI-with-child enhancement. ALR hearing required within 15 days under Tex. Transp. Code § 524.031.
• Drug possession (Tex. Health & Safety Code § 481) — Penalty Group classification drives punishment range. Possession with intent to distribute under § 481.112 elevates one class.
• Assault and family violence (Tex. Penal Code § 22.01) — Class A misdemeanor; Class A family-violence assault adds a federal firearms ban under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9). Continuous family violence under § 25.11 is a third-degree felony.
• Theft (Tex. Penal Code § 31.03) — aggregated under § 31.09, value tiers from Class C (under $100) to first-degree felony ($300,000+).
• Weapons offenses (Tex. Penal Code Ch. 46) — UCW under § 46.02, felon-in-possession under federal § 922(g)(1), prohibited weapons under § 46.05.
• Sex offenses (Tex. Penal Code Ch. 21-22) — sexual assault is a second-degree felony; aggravated sexual assault is a first-degree; both trigger Tex. Code Crim. Proc. ch. 62 registration.

The Tarrant County criminal court infrastructure

Tarrant County criminal cases are filed and tried at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center, 401 W. Belknap Street, Fort Worth. Felony matters are heard by the county's eleven felony district courts — the four Criminal District Courts (Nos. 1–4) plus the 213th, 297th, 371st, 372nd, 396th, 432nd, and 485th District Courts — while Class A and B misdemeanors go to the ten County Criminal Courts (Nos. 1–10), Tarrant's designation for its criminal misdemeanor courts (distinct from the civil county courts at law). Class C fine-only cases are handled in the justice-of-the-peace and municipal courts. Before bond is posted, a defendant is held in the Sheriff's jail system — booked at the Tarrant County Corrections Center, 100 N. Lamar Street, and housed at the Lon Evans Corrections Center, 600 W. Weatherford Street, both in Fort Worth. The Tarrant County Sheriff's Office runs the detention facilities and serves capias warrants.

The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office, headquartered in the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center, is the prosecuting authority for every state-court criminal matter in the county. There is no separate county attorney for misdemeanors — the Criminal District Attorney charges both felonies and misdemeanors, routing felony cases to a felony-trial division and misdemeanor cases to a misdemeanor-trial division. Each division carries its own intake practice, plea-evaluation framework, and trial-preparation tempo, and knowing how a given court and division move a docket is a core part of local practice.

The scale of the county shapes the docket. With roughly 2.11 million residents (2020 Census) spread across Fort Worth and large suburbs like Arlington, Grand Prairie, Mansfield, North Richland Hills, Euless, Grapevine, Bedford, Keller, and Hurst, Tarrant County carries one of the heaviest criminal caseloads in Texas — which is why the work is distributed across eleven felony district courts and ten County Criminal Courts rather than a handful. Understanding how an individual court and its assigned prosecutors tend to move cases, and recognizing when a matter is a candidate for a diversion track, is where day-to-day familiarity with the Fort Worth courthouse pays off for a client.

The defense workflow for a Tarrant County case

Once you retain the firm, the case proceeds on a defined workflow:

1. Bond and pretrial release. If you are in custody, we file an emergency bond motion under Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 17.15 in the trial court. We coordinate with the bondsman or pursue a PR bond where eligible. We respond to any pending capias warrant.
2. Discovery demand. Within 14 days of arraignment, we file the Michael Morton Act discovery demand under Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 39.14. We obtain the offense report, body-cam video, in-car video, lab reports, dispatch tape, and prior-call records.
3. Investigation and motion practice. We review the discovery for Fourth Amendment suppression issues, chain-of-custody breaks, Brady-and-Giglio disclosure issues, and procedural defects. We draft motions to suppress, motions in limine, and motions to dismiss as the record supports.
4. Plea negotiation. We engage the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office on plea options — pretrial diversion (where the county runs such a program), deferred adjudication, charge reduction, or favorable sentencing. Negotiation tempo varies by county and division.
5. Trial preparation or disposition. If the case resolves by plea, we document the plea agreement and represent you at the plea hearing. If the case proceeds to trial, we prepare voir dire, opening statement, cross-examination outlines, defense case-in-chief, and closing argument.
6. Post-disposition relief. If the case ends favorably, we calendar the expunction or non-disclosure petition. If a sentence is imposed, we file notice of appeal within 30 days under Tex. R. App. P. 26.2(a) where appellate review is appropriate.

Engagement and fee structure

The firm operates on a flat-fee structure for criminal-defense engagements. At the free initial consultation (30-45 minutes, conducted by one of the founding partners), we assess the case posture, identify the time-sensitive deadlines, and quote a flat fee in writing if we are the right firm for the matter. The flat fee covers the entire defense through final disposition or trial in chief on the underlying charge.

We do not bill criminal-defense matters hourly because the State controls the case pace and hourly billing creates the wrong incentives. Appeals, post-conviction relief, and unrelated ancillary matters are scoped separately.

Free Tarrant County consultation

Direct to attorney 24/7. Flat-fee representation, scoped in writing at the consult.

What a Tarrant County criminal-defense attorney actually does

In a Tarrant County case, the defense attorney's first job is document control: pulling the offense report, the body-worn and dashcam video, and the arresting agency's intake records — whether the arrest was made by the Fort Worth, Arlington, or Mansfield police, another municipal department, or the Sheriff's Office — along with any laboratory analysis of tested substances. From there the work becomes strategic judgment about charges, plea posture, pretrial motions, and evidence challenges. Where a stop or search is at issue, counsel examines the precise basis for the encounter (a traffic infraction, a community-caretaker function, corroboration of an anonymous tip, or claimed consent) and the chain of evidence justifying each step of the escalation.

Motion practice in Tarrant County courts

Effective defense in Tarrant County turns substantially on motion practice. Common motions include: motion to suppress (Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 38.23 and Fourth Amendment), motion in limine on identifying-witness or prior-conviction evidence, motion to disclose confidential informant identity, motion to compel additional discovery (under Michael Morton Act, Article 39.14), motion for change of venue if pretrial publicity is significant, and motion to dismiss for speedy-trial violation under Article 32A.02. Each motion is evaluated against the specific factual record and the judge's customary disposition. Counsel familiar with the Fort Worth courts will know, for example, which judges entertain extensive evidentiary suppression hearings versus which prefer to defer issues to trial.

Sentencing, probation, and post-disposition relief

Most cases in Tarrant County resolve by plea. The defense attorney's value at that stage shifts from trial-readiness to sentencing advocacy: PSR-review and objection preparation, identification of mitigating factors specific to the defendant (stable employment, family responsibilities, treatment commitments, restitution efforts), and negotiation with the prosecutor for charge concessions, deferred adjudication, or community-supervision conditions calibrated to actual rehabilitation needs rather than maximalist control. After judgment, counsel handles probation-condition modifications under Article 42A.701, early termination motions, expunction or non-disclosure petitions when available, and (in qualifying cases) writ-of-habeas-corpus litigation for fundamental defects in the conviction.

Tarrant County also runs a broad slate of specialty and diversion courts that can matter enormously at the charging and sentencing stages for an eligible defendant. They include a Veterans Treatment Court, a Mental Health Diversion Court, the First Offender Drug Program and the CSCD-supervised DIRECT drug court, the Felony Alcohol Intervention Program (FAIP) for repeat-DWI cases, a Domestic Violence Diversion Program, the Reaching Independence through Self-Empowerment (RISE) reentry program, the Youthful Offender Diversion Alternative (YODA), and a Public Safety Employee Treatment Court. Whether any of them fits turns on the charge and the client's record, so screening a case against these programs early — before a plea is entered — is part of what local defense practice in Tarrant County adds to a case.

L and L Law Group represents clients across Tarrant County in felony and misdemeanor matters, with substantial caseload concentration in DWI, drug, assault, theft, sex-offense, and weapons cases. Our practice spans the Fort Worth felony district courts — the four Criminal District Courts and the seven numbered district courts that hear felonies — and the ten County Criminal Courts that handle misdemeanors.